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Lucifer was doing his best to avoid his mother and Maze joined him in that, both downing a few shots at the bar so they were prepared to deal with her. In the meantime The Goddess of All Creation was chained to the floor and sat on the sofa boiling with rage. She stared daggers into Maze but the demon was unfazed, just leant against the bar and showed off her own daggers whilst eyeing up all the other weapons she’d laid out on the coffee table. Once again The Goddess yanked at the chains and groaned in frustration.
“This is ridiculous!” She snapped “All I want is to see my children and granddaughter!”
“That’s not gonna happen” Maze assured.
Lucifer agreed with his demon “Lily was terrified of you and you expect a ‘World’s Best Grandma’ mug?!” He scoffed “Pardon me if I find that a little unlikely”
“If it weren’t for me she wouldn’t exist! I have a right-”
“The only right you got is to burn in Hell!” Maze interrupted.
“Ooh, I like that one” Lucifer quipped.
The Goddess made a strangled noise that neither Maze nor Lucifer had heard since Lily was a toddler and they almost laughed. However Lucifer’s mood quickly shifted. If he thought his Devil Face was memorable, then he was sorely unprepared for seeing Lily, the only good thing that had come from him, in tears and completely terrified. He swung back his whiskey and slammed the glass down on the bar. The Goddess jolted when she sensed his demeanour but she wasn’t afraid, even when Lucifer sauntered over with a demon blade.
“Now, Mum” He added a sarcastic lint to the title “You are going to tell me exactly how you got out of Hell and, more importantly” Maze pulled her hair back and pressed a blade against the Goddess’s exposed neck “Why Lily is so scared of you”
The Goddess still wasn’t afraid, just miffed at her treatment. Her lips thinned as she pursed them shut.
Maze growled and yanked her hair “Talk”
“…No”
Lucifer gritted his teeth but he didn’t falter “What?”
You could find less growling at a dog fight.
“You can kill me but” The Goddess smiled “You won’t”
Maze grazed the blade along her neck “You wanna bet?”
She paid no attention to the demon and focused completely on Lucifer. It didn’t matter what Maze thought or wanted as long as she could get through to her son, dig her claws in and start plucking strings. She didn’t like the idea of manipulating her child but she’d come too far to start pulling punches now. It was one thing to get into Heaven, it was an entirely different, much more satisfying thing to get revenge.
Speaking of which, her ticket arrived.
The elevator dinged and Lily tottered in quickly, only to freeze when she saw her smiling Grandmother. This was what made Maze release the Goddess so she could stand between the woman and the girl. However Lucifer, upon noticing Amenadiel hadn’t arrived yet, realised that they had time to sort this situation out properly provided they played their cards right.
“Maze, hide Mum” He ordered, quickly moving to tidy up her weapons. Maze did so, harshly yanking the Goddess towards the bedrooms at the back of the Penthouse. With his arms full of weapons he turned to his daughter, an old memory bringing a tint of fear to his eyes “Lily, darling, please sit on the sofa and stay away from anything…pointy”
Lily’s eyes lingered on the weapons, that same memory from a different perspective triggering the same amount of fear that it did in her Father. She promptly sat down so she was out of the way with her legs swinging in an attempt to stave off boredom. Lucifer clanked around the room as fumbled under the stack of weapons. He was so busy straining that he didn’t notice the mace slipping from the pile until it crashed onto his foot.
“ARGH!” He screamed “BLOODY HELL!”
He fell backwards, the weapons clattered and scattered all around him before he crashed onto the piano, creating a screeching chord. Lily burst into a fit of giggling hysterics, rolling around on the soda. The sound of her laughter was stronger than any morphine and Lucifer couldn’t help the small smile that appeared. All of sudden he realised just how quiet his Penthouse had been in the past two years. Sure it could get loud with how many women he’d had over, how many parties he’d thrown and how Maze was almost always throwing some sort of weapon at a wall but there was all just noise, nothing really worth paying attention to. But Lily was the centre of his universe, the only thing that had mattered to him. When she’d died not only had a hole been ripped into Lucifer’s heart, everything around him collapsed. No prose could ever do his grief justice.
Lucifer was so caught up in his train of thought that he didn’t notice Lily’s silence until she was standing in front him with a concerned expression.
“Daddy, why are you crying?”
Lucifer felt his cheeks and realised a few tears had slipped through. He quickly wiped them away and gave his little princess a reassuring smile “My dear child, I’ve missed you so much. These are happy tears because I’m happy you’re back”
Lily smiled “Good, I though the mace crushed your foot like it did my skull”
Lucifer felt like he was falling through time. The memory…the blood…the fear…anger…begging-
Cradling what was left of Lily’s body in his arms. She was like a doll, so little and lifeless. There wasn’t any crying, not even a scream. Maybe there was a little gasp, but if there was then no one heard. Maze had removed the mace, Lucifer threw her away and Lily fell from Earth and into Hell.
Lucifer went into shock. He rocked his toddler’s body as if she was the one who needed comforting.
“Daddy?”
Lucifer snapped back to the present and looked up at his little girl. Her head was intact, there wasn’t any blood and she wasn’t a toddler anymore. She looked back at his foot and, when she was satisfied that it wasn’t splattered pieces, looked back to him as if to figure out why he was so upset. Somehow she remembered dying but for some reason it hadn’t obviously affected her. But surely it had to? Maybe Lucifer just didn’t have the skill to pick out what was wrong? If that was the case then he knew someone who could help.
“Come on Lily!” He announced, jumping up and trying to appear as cheerful as possible “There’s someone you need to meet”
Lily followed along as Lucifer led her out of the penthouse, but they were cut off by Amenadiel practically falling out of the elevator. As soon as she saw him Lily froze, remembering the events that occurred earlier that day along with Amenadiel’s reaction. The last thing she wanted was to get in trouble, she hadn’t liked her most recent punishments.
Lucifer opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but Amenadiel interrupted him.
“Luci, we need to talk about Lily!”
Even though Amenadiel had taken the time to calm down he was still very panicked and agitated. The fact that all of this was connected to his daughter had Lucifer feeling much the same.
“Why? What’s wrong?” He instinctively drew Lily closer, trying to protect her from an unknown threat.
“She’s self-actualised”
Lucifer was taken aback but his eyes lit up and a smile broke out on his face. He turned to look at Lily, bursting with pride.
“Well aren’t you a clever girl! It took me decades to figure that-!”
“STOP IT!”
Lucifer stared at his brother in shock. Amenadiel very rarely used that tone of voice and Lucifer certainly didn’t expect him to use it on such a young girl, especially when that girl was his niece. If Amenadiel noticed that Lucifer was displeased by this he didn’t acknowledge it.
“That’s it! That’s her power! Influencing others! Making them do what she wants!”
“Amenadiel!” Lucifer interrupted and held his hand up “Calm down! It’s not like she’s a walking nuclear bomb”
“She might be! Uriel almost killed himself because of her!”
Any chance of the conversation being a flippant one died with that statement. Lucifer looked down at Lily for any indication that Amenadiel was lying, as unlikely as that was. But Lily bit her lip and turned away. Since self-actualising she’d always used them to get out of trouble however this was the first time in her short life that she was in trouble with her Daddy. As a result she had a far more human response, which consisted of her lip trembling as her eyes glistened with tears. Such a display would’ve normally broken Lucifer’s resolve but Amenadiel’s words wouldn’t stop echoing in his head.
“Uriel almost killed himself because of her!”
What was that film? Rosemary’s Baby? Yes, that was it. He was well aware of the mythos surrounding the Devil’s Child but at no point had he ever stopped to think that Lily, his darling little girl, was the Antichrist.
“Why?” Lily still didn’t look at him so Lucifer knelt down, tilted her chin towards him and tried again “Lily, why did you try to hurt your uncle?”
“W-what?” Lily’s trembling lip gave her a stutter and confusion filled her eyes as a few tears slipped down her rosy cheeks “B-But Amenadiel’s m-my uncle”
“You have many uncles” Lucifer clarified “Why did you try to hurt Uriel?”
Lily sniffed and wiped her eyes “Because I wanted to be like you, Daddy”
“Like me?”
“He was bad, he needs to be punished”
Lucifer froze. How did he deal with this? He barely knew how to parent a mortal child, let alone the Antichrist who, at five years old, was already attempting murder. The fact that she was justifying her actions with his logic chilled him to the bone.
“Go watch TV” He ordered.
“Luci-”
Lucifer jumped up, grabbed his brother’s arm and dragged him over so they were behind the bar. Only when he heard a cartoon jingle did he start to talk, and even then was it in a hushed tone.
“I’m taking her to Linda” Lucifer whispered to Amenadiel.
Amenadiel swallowed nervously. Looking at her sitting on the sofa, her legs swinging as she sang along with the characters, Lily was a picture of innocence. Just a normal little girl, doing normal little girl things. But he’d seen the darker side of her, a side that had no right to exist in anyone or anything. If she could do that to Uriel, an archangel, what could she do to a normal human?
Then again, what choice did they have?